


Things We Do At Night

by orphan_account



Series: Sherstrade Domesticity [10]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Cuddles, Gentle, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Prayer, Settled, Sleep, Teasing, Vignette, loving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 05:12:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9584966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Greg finds peace to aid him to sleep in the affectionate way he and Sherlock tease each other before bed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the Blue October song of the same name.

‘What are you doing?’ Sherlock stood in the doorway of the bedroom. He’d brushed his teeth, prepared for bed, and had stepped up to the bedroom door to find Greg sitting on the edge of the mattress, muttering a prayer quietly, and making the sign of the cross. 

Greg remained quiet for a moment before he relented and turned his head, giving Sherlock’s the attention he was seeking. ‘Praying, Sherlock, what does it look like?’ he asked. He turned his left arm over and fingered the strap of his watch open with his right hand. 

‘British Sign Language,’ Sherlock replied, being a total smart-arse, and grinned when Greg set mildly offended eyes on him. 

‘I pray every night, Sherlock. You’re usually too busy wanking in the toilet to know it.’ Greg offered by way of getting his own back and laughed when Sherlock looked impossibly affronted. It was a pure tease, of course - Sherlock was often curled up beside Greg in bed when he prayed, already half asleep, or he was watching him with keen eyes, waiting for his own name to be included in Greg’s wishes for blessings. 

Sherlock pushed away from the door and glided into the room on light feet. ‘I know you pray,’ he said, ‘Catholic parents - you had it instilled into you, I get it.’ He shrugged his shoulders and dropped down onto the mattress beside Greg. ‘You just looked more animated than usual.’ 

‘It’s Lent - a lot of people like to offer up their sins at this time of year.’ Greg explained. He wrapped his arm around Sherlock’s lower back and nuzzled in against the nape of the younger man’s neck. ‘I asked Our Lord to...forgive your shortcomings, too…’ he teased between laying feather-light kisses against Sherlock’s collarbone. 

Sherlock smiled, ‘Oh did you? How kind.’ 

‘Hmm,’ Greg hummed into the spot behind Sherlock’s ear as he brought his lip-service higher. ‘I said...forgive...the little shit...he knows not...what he does…’ Greg moved to Sherlock’s jaw, peppering kisses to the middle of his chin before finally pressing his lips to Sherlock’s gently. Sherlock sighed and went with the flow, pliant in Greg’s arms, giving himself up to the soft familiarity of Greg’s mouth. They went backwards together slowly, lying horizontally across the bed, and broke their kiss only to look one another in the eye as they lay still in the peaceful safety of one another’s presence. 

‘Love you,’ Sherlock said, quiet and sincere, with his eyes wide and innocent. 

Greg smile with closed lips, ‘I know you do.’ He said gently, ‘I love you, too.’ 

Sherlock’s eyes flicked side to side, looking between both of Greg’s eyes. ‘I missed you today; it’s all well and good occupying my mind with Mycroft’s _rubbish_ , but it doesn’t feel the same as being in the thick of it with you.’ He reached his right hand up and softly pulled his index finger along the stubbled outline of Greg’s jaw. ‘You need to stop being able to handle your caseload and give me a ring,’ he smiled cheekily. 

Greg laughed lightly, ‘Maybe I do. Everybody in the office is getting on too well. They need a Holmesian firecracker up their arses to wind them all up; I can have a few complaints on my desk to deal with, keep me busy between homicides and drug raids.’ Greg kept up the pretence. 

Sherlock raised his eyebrows, ‘That’s a very good plan, Inspector Lestrade; you should get a promotion.’ 

‘Why thank you,’ Greg forced his accent to sound somewhere near as refined as Sherlock’s and laughed at the way Sherlock frowned at him. 

Sherlock drew his arm down and folded it in against his chest. ‘It’s comfy here.’ 

‘For now,’ Greg agreed, ‘But if we fall asleep, it’ll be less comfy in an hour when we wake up with cramping calves.’ He said, entirely too aware of their legs still hanging over the side of the bed. ‘C’mon,’ he tapped his hand against Sherlock’s bony hip, ‘Into bed - you can be the little spoon.’ He pulled his arm from beneath Sherlock and sat up, then got to his feet. He held out his hands, waving his fingers until Sherlock reached out both arms and allowed the older man to pull him up to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. 

Sherlock stood as Greg stepped away from the bed, pulling off his t-shirt. ‘...for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory.’ 

Greg frowned and regarded Sherlock. ‘What?’ 

‘When you say the Lord’s Prayer, that’s difference between how you recite it, to how Mycroft and I were raised to recite it. We went to a Christian school - _a Protestant school._ As a Catholic, the prayer ends with ‘deliver us from evil’.’ Sherlock nodded at Greg and received an agreeable nod from him. ‘As a Protestant, we elaborate in our glorification of God with ‘for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory’...’ 

Greg smirked in wonderment at the slim man and shook his head, ‘I didn’t know that. Both that you ever listened when your faithful parents were teaching you scripture, and that you heathens tried to make yourselves look better.’ Greg teased lightly. He smiled brighter when Sherlock let out a small laugh. 

‘Don’t start getting any ideas about me bashing a bible alongside you. I respect that your God is important to you, but it means nothing to me. Science…’ Sherlock tapped his curls with his index fingers. ‘...that’s what governs my brain.’ 

‘That,’ Greg nodded, watching Sherlock flop down into bed on his usual side, ‘...and me,’ he grinned, standing at the side of the bed. 

Sherlock laughed, snuggling himself against his pillow, ‘Of course you.’ He nodded, looking innocent and young and behaving like a teenager. After all, Greg reminded himself, it hadn’t really been all that long since Sherlock really was a teen. At twenty-four, he was still only blooming into adulthood. 

Greg climbed into the bed beside Sherlock and leaned across him to switch off the lamp on the locker at Sherlock’s bedside. ‘Scooch in then,’ he encouraged, opening his arm out to draw the younger man’s entire body against him. Sherlock shuffled in immediately, holding tightly to Greg’s arm as he threw it around his waist. ‘G’night,’ he said, burying his face into the curls that twisted at the nape of Sherlock’s neck, his voice suddenly quieter, smoother, _gentler_. 

‘Night…’ Sherlock whispered back, twisting his fingers around Greg’s, ensuring he was locking the man around him for the night ahead. 

Quiet flooded the room for a few moments, and Sherlock began to fall toward sleep. His body relaxed completely against Greg’s and he breathed slowly through his nose with his eyes closed. It used to make him smile as a child that you had to pretend to be asleep - ie, lying with your eyes closed - to actually fall asleep. He rolled his tongue around his mouth, hating that feeling of suddenly being aware of the muscle and it not sitting comfortably in his mouth, and smacked his lips as he resettled. The noises seemed to provoke Greg and the older man tightened his arm around Sherlock’s waist. 

‘You alright?’ Greg asked in a husky whisper. 

Sherlock’s hair rustled on the pillow as he nodded, ‘Um huh,’ he hummed. 

‘Oh…’ Greg said, keeping his voice quiet, ‘I forgot, your phone rang when you were in the shower after dinner. It was Mycroft. He said he needed your help after the weekend.’ 

Sherlock frowned and blinked his eyes open. He peered awkwardly over his shoulder, ‘With what?’

Greg shook his head, ‘He didn’t say - he just said to tell you he would need your help after the weekend, and that he’ll call you.’ 

Sherlock turned back, making a face into the darkness as he resettled his head into a comfortable spot. ‘He can fuck off.’ He whispered, eliciting a breathy laugh from Greg. ‘Now shut up, I’m tired.’ 

‘You’re a stroppy git when you’re sleepy,’ Greg teased him, moving his hand in small circles across Sherlock’s abdomen. ‘....you’re a stroppy git when you’re not sleepy too, though, so…’ Sherlock swiftly threw his arm back, digging his elbow into Greg’s ribs and all the older man could do was laugh. Winding Sherlock up when he was pliant and somnolent like this was always so easy and perhaps one of Greg’s favourite jovial pastimes. ‘N’aw,’ Greg turning his lazily circling hand into tickling fingers, scraping his fingertips across Sherlock’s belly over his t-shirt. The young man wriggled back, his hips jutting backward, colliding his buttocks with Greg’s pelvis. Greg’s amusement increased. ‘...I can do the doo-dahs if you like; I seem to remember you writhing at how ticklish you found it.’ 

Sherlock thrust back his elbow again, ‘No…’ he whined, but the good nature of Greg’s intentions wasn’t missed. Sleepy though he was, he enjoyed the intimacy of their time together like this. Greg stilled his tickling fingers and returned his hand to its previous, more gentle exercise of smoothing small circles around Sherlock’s taut tummy. Sherlock bodily relaxed, sighing contentedly. Greg decided he’d disturbed the peace enough. He laid a soft kiss on Sherlock’s neck and inhaled his scent as he breathed in deeply on a comfortable sigh. Quiet befell the room again and within ten minutes, Greg found the space in his arms occupied by the relaxed weight of Sherlock’s sleep-captured limbs. He fell so deeply, so quickly, when at last he settled to sleep and Greg loved the way that every inch of tension and daily tightness completely left his body, rendering him still and soft and relaxed. He nuzzled his face close to Sherlock’s back and kept his arm wrapped loosely over the younger man’s hips, matching his breathing to Sherlock’s until sleep claimed him, too.


End file.
